Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Personal Values And Professional Ethics, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

My purpose on this occasion is to urge reexamination of personal values as a fundamental resource of professional ethics. The essential point is that rules of ethics, such as those embodied in the profession's ethical codes, are insufficient guides to making the choices of action that a professional must make in practice. I will suggest that the same is true of professional tradition and conventional ways of practice. This is not to say that rules of ethics and traditions are irrelevant. Rules of professional ethics frame the ethical problems that are encountered in a lawyer's life throughout practice. Moreover, professional …

The Legal Skills Program At The College Of William And Mary: An Early Report, James E. Moliterno

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Kentucky's New Rules Of Professional Conduct For Lawyers, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On July 12, 1989, the Kentucky Supreme Court adopted its own version of the American Bar Association's 1983 Model Rules of Professional Conduct as the body of disciplinary law applicable to lawyers practicing in the state. These new rules constitute a major improvement in the state's law of legal ethics. Their adoption should be considered a victory for Kentucky lawyers and, more importantly, a victory for the people of the state, the ultimate beneficiaries of the regulation of the legal profession.

As with most victories, the adoption of the new rules was not unequivocally positive. Kentucky's version of the Model …

Lawyers As Officers Of The Court, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Lawyers like to refer to themselves as officers of the court. Careful analysis of the role of the lawyer within the adversarial legal system reveals the characterization to be vacuous and unduly self-laudatory. It confuses lawyers and misleads the public. The profession, therefore, should either stop using the officer of the court characterization or give meaning to it. This Article proposes certain modifications of the existing rules of professional responsibility that would bring lawyers' actual obligations more in line with those suggested by the label of officer of the court.

Why Kentucky Should Adopt The Aba's Model Rules Of Professional Conduct, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 1983, after six years of drafting and lively debate, the American Bar Association adopted the Model Rules of Professional Conduct as its most recent statement of the ethical norms of the legal profession. Shortly thereafter the ABA forwarded the rules to the states for consideration and possible adoption as binding ethical principles. As of this writing, a number of states have adopted the Model Rules, in full or in substantial form, and several more have proposals for such adoption pending before their supreme courts

The Kentucky Supreme Court presently awaits the state bar association's recommendation regarding the Model Rules' …

Ethics: Professionalism, Craft, And Failure, James R. Elkins

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Taking And Pursuing A Case: Some Observations Regarding "Legal Ethics" And Attorney Accountability, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article addresses some of the potential liabilities that may arise from an attorney's decision to decline, refer, undertake, continue or discontinue the prosecution of a civil action. This Article suggests that counsel's obligations to his or her client, adversary, and fellow members of the bar, as well as to the judiciary and the justice system, can be balanced without subjecting attorneys to liability. This balance can be attained, however, only if potential problems are spotted and minimal precautions are taken.

Adversary Ethics: More Dirty Tricks, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this article the author provides a primer on the more common forms of cheating employed by trial lawyers. Another purpose is to suggest that there are antidotes that may be administered to curb these abuses, assuming that trial attorneys are alert enough to invoke them, and trial judges are willing to apply them.

The Doctor And His Lawyer: Conflicts Of Interest, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article will not survey and catalog all available cases dealing with the "insurance counsel's tightrope." Instead, it will focus on the identification and resolution of conflicts of interest that may arise at various stages of the litigation of a medical malpractice action in which a lawyer has been retained to represent the interests of both the physician policy-holder and his insurance carrier. Many of the problems examined are applicable to all insurance defense litigation, and the combination of large claims and complex issues presented in medical malpractice cases, together with the distrust of lawyers shared by many doctors, provides …

Solicitation And The Uncertain Status Of The Code Of Professional Responsibility In Kentucky, Eugene R. Gaetke

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In 1969 the Kentucky Supreme Court adopted the American Bar Association's Code of Professional Responsibility as the disciplinary rules binding upon attorneys practicing in the state. The Court adopted the Code as an apparent attempt to provide the Kentucky bench and bar the certainty and guidance offered by a codification of the frequently subjective and occasionally nebulous body of law known as legal ethics. The Court used particular language in its rule adopting the Code, however, which renders uncertain the precise status of the Code in Kentucky. As a result, a conscientious practitioner in Kentucky cannot confidently look to the …

Kentucky Law Survey: Professional Responsibility, Eugene R. Gaetke, Rebecca G. Casey

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the face of persistent criticism of the legal profession, from within as well as without, the Kentucky Supreme Court exhibits a certain degree of ambivalence toward issues of professional responsibility. This ambivalence manifests itself in two ways.

First, the Court's treatment of different categories of professional misconduct seems at times unjustifiably inconsistent. The Court reacts to certain misconduct in an almost uniformly harsh manner, evincing the attitude of a strict disciplinarian for the practicing bar. Occasionally, however, the Court responds to various other kinds of equally gross misconduct with apparently undue leniency. In such cases the Court seems to …

Serving The Guilty, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

My purpose here is to ask whether there is a moral way for a lawyer to serve the guilty. I think this is an issue Mr. Rightor would have enjoyed. He was devoted to the instruction of future lawyers, particularly those who studied law at this law school and were enrolled in his classes in professional ethics. He was equally devoted, in the midst of a busy and successful law practice, to care and compassion for the occasional professional colleague who had, as Mr. McDonald said in his eulogy, "through ignorance or . . . financial plight . . . …

Religion, Law And Ethics -- A Call For Dialogue, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Ideology Of Advocacy: Procedural Justice And Professional Ethics, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Conventional morality frowns at the ethics of advocacy. Public opinion disapproves of what it considers the lawyer's most characteristic activities. Popular culture can reconcile itself to him only by pretending that all his clients are virtuous. The lawyer's response takes the form of a dialectic of cynicism and naiveté. On one hand, he sees his more degrading activities as licensed by a fundamental amorality lying beneath conventional morality. On the other hand, he sees his more heartening ones as serving an institutional justice higher than conventional morality. The two moods divide the profession as a whole, and the division can …

The Right And The Power: The Prosecution Of Watergate, Barry D. Halpern

Florida State University Law Review

By Leon Jaworski. New York: Reader's Digest Press; Houston: Gulf Publishing Co. 1976. Pp. 305. $9.95 New York: Pocket Books. Pp. 372. $2.50.

A Remedy For The Discharge Of Professional Employees Who Refuse To Perform Unethical Or Illegal Acts: A Proposal In Aid Of Professional Ethics, Jon P. Christiansen

Vanderbilt Law Review

This note will discuss first the duties demanded of a professional in the proper exercise of his ethical responsibilities, including conduct demanded both by criminal statutes and by professional codes of conduct. Secondly, an examination will be made of three alternatives for the enforcement of professional ethics without the necessity of a right to recovery in the discharged employee. Thirdly,the limitations of traditional master-servant theory will be discussed as they relate to a possible cause of action for an "abusive discharge." Finally, this cause of action will be proposed and a consideration will be made of the elements of the …

Organized Bar: Self-Serving Or Serving The Public?, Thomas Ehrlich

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Under this provocative title the Senate Subcommittee on Representation of Citizen Interests conducted a hearing at the American Bar Association midyear meeting in Houston on Februarv 3, 1974. John V. Tunnev, Democrat of California, presided, along with Charles McC. Mathias, Republican of Maryland. Appearing as witnesses were:

Chesterfield Smith, president of the American Bar Association:

Stuart L. Kadison of Los Angeles, chairman of the Association's Committee on Delivery of Legal Services;

Christopher Edley of New York City, chairman of the Association's Consortium on Legal Services;

John F. Sutton, professor of law at the University of Texas, reporter for the committee …

Manners, Morals And Legal Education, Thomas Ehrlich

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many spokesmen for the legal profession have been calling on the law schools to pay more attention to ethical responsibilities, usually meaning manners and civility. But many of today's law students believe that the profession is not meeting some of its public responsibilities. When that problem is squarely faced, with the law schools' help, then good manners should follow.

Professional Responsibility Of The Civil Practitioner: Teaching Legal Ethics In The Contracts Course, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In two earlier papers I have written about the professional responsibility of the attorney in criminal practice. Surprisingly, a number of intelligent and experienced lawyers have suggested that problems of the same kind and complexity do not arise, at least with the same frequency, in the work of the civil practitioner. This is a serious misconception, although there are certainly important differences in the civil practitioner's role. For example, unlike the criminal defense lawyer, the civil practitioner does not have the same problems relating to the presumption of innocence, the constitutional right to counsel, and the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.? …

The Professional Responsibility Of The Prosecuting Attorney, Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This is the first of a two-part treatment of the ethical problems of prosecuting attorneys. Mr. Freedman explores certain practices allegedly engaged in by prosecutors, pointing up the unique decisions they must make and the ethical implications of their actions. He examines six areas of particular difficulty, attempting to delineate the fine line between strategy and unethical activity in each.

Book Note, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Donald K. Carroll, Judge of the District Court of Appeal, First District of Florida, has presented in this book a treasure house of materials useful to every judge. Included in it are writings from a multitude of sources, published both in this country and Europe. The book's primary purpose is to provide an anthology of inspirational and helpful literary gems for use by judges in their work; its secondary purpose is to give source materials for preparing speeches or writings on judicial subjects.

Report Of The Special Committee Of The American Bar Foundation On Canons Of Ethics, American Bar Foundation

Miscellaneous Materials

The Special Committee on Canons of Ethics submits its report, detailing the procedures followed, the material accumulated, and the conclusions reached by the Special Committee since its appointment in February, 1955.

Legal Ethics And The Law Schools, Bernard C. Gavit

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What Leaders of Movement for Teaching Professional Ethics in the Law Schools Really Have in Mind Is That These Schools Make Some Intelligent and Wholehearted Attempt to Develop Professional Character-What Can Be Done in This Direction by Such Institutions-Bad Effect of Narrow Point of View of Much Teaching in the Past.

Analysis Of Committee's Answers To Questions 1-229 With Explanatory Statement, New York County Lawyers' Association

Miscellaneous Materials

This Committee was authorized by he by-laws to cooperate with other associations in raising the standards of professional conduct, and to publish treatises on :he subject from time to time. Hundreds of inquiries have reached he Association or the Committee, and this leaflet answers 229 of those questions, one that broadly cover the field of professional conduct.